[ Club Chachapoya ] Meigs Or Bust

[ViperPilot2]

2 minutes ago, taoftedal said:

 

Want to start the conversation on this thread VP2 or start a new one ... ?

 

No, I don't think so at this point. Everyone needs a couple days to decompress and take it easy.

I know I do.

[PhrogPhlyer]

I forgot to mention that Spencer NOLF (NRQ) and KNDZ NAS Whiting (South) are good places to practice helo flying.

Check to see if there are any scenery enhancements for your sim version.

Here is Spencer with FSX addon scenery.

[jgf]

21 minutes ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

none of us did well at this the first time

 

Lol, or the second ...or the third ....

 

Oddly I've found larger helicopters easier to fly than smaller ones, I assume due to larger MOIs.  A Bell 47 is like a leaf in a whirlwind.

[PhrogPhlyer]

2 minutes ago, jgf said:

Oddly I've found larger helicopters easier to fly than smaller ones,

Generally true in flight sims.

Not sure how it is in FS2004 or 2002, but in FSX the Bell 47 on floats is a dream to fly, and fantastic visibility while learning.

[ViperPilot2]

Whether it's a Chinook, B206 or EC-135 the Flight characteristics of helicopters in Nine are all over the map, especially in Hover and initiating forward Flight. All of the Helos I fly are used with Rob Barengredt's Hover gauge which allows for a clean hover and stable flight up to 45 kts, after which the Gauge shuts off and the FD's from the .air file take over.

 

I don't know how they're modeled in FSX, but most Helicopters in Nine are modeled as single engine Turboprop Aircraft, the second Engine parameters used only to spin the Tail Rotor (if applicable). Some use Turbine Engine parameters. Like I said, all over the map

 

Best helicopter in Nine is the Owen Hewitt B206 BIII; whichever version you choose, the thing literally flies itself.

 

Aside from that, just about every Helo out there is gonna be a handful depending on your personal 'touch' and how much you turn down the Sensitivity/Null Zone on your Controller. The Default B206 and the freeware Chinook come the closest at giving you instant nausea and vertigo without leaving your chair.

 

Full disclosure; everyone knows that in the AU Rally I flew The Lady (Airwolf) which had a modified FDE to closer approximate the fictional attributes of the helicopter. At 85% Torque (the start of the Yellow Line) The Lady flew at 285 kts. Indicated and 317 kts. Ground Speed. For the AU Rally I flew at 39% Torque to keep the speed at 140 kts. Indicated.

 

Anyone who chooses to fly a Helicopter in Nine will be looking at hand flying the sucker from the time the Skids leave the ground until they touch at the end. Totally... Exhilarating!

[jgf]

4 minutes ago, ViperPilot2 said:

Flight characteristics of helicopters in Nine are all over the map, especially in Hover

 

I can hover easily from takeoff, but once flying I cannot come to a stop and hover, the slightest backwards movement causes the blasted thing to go crazy.

 

5 minutes ago, ViperPilot2 said:

all Helicopters in Nine are modeled as single engine turbine Aircraft,

 

Lol, I once wasted a week trying to convert a fifties era helicopter to the proper radial engine (the cfg said it had a piston engine but gauges were for a turbine);  engine ran, gauges registered, rotor spun up, but it just bounced on the ground, even after giving it three times the power and doubling the prop thrust.  I gave up, reverted to the original files, and repainted the gauges to represent those for a piston engine.

[ViperPilot2]

4 minutes ago, jgf said:

 

I can hover easily from takeoff, but once flying I cannot come to a stop and hover, the slightest backwards movement causes the blasted thing to go crazy.

 

 

Lol, I once wasted a week trying to convert a fifties era helicopter to the proper radial engine (the cfg said it had a piston engine but gauges were for a turbine);  engine ran, gauges registered, rotor spun up, but it just bounced on the ground, even after giving it three times the power and doubling the prop thrust.  I gave up, reverted to the original files, and repainted the gauges to represent those for a piston engine.

 

Try the Hover Gauge; it'll give you a whole appreciation for slow speed and Hover. With it I can put the Skids on the 'X' about 70% of the time. I have Bjorn Buchtner's Hughes 500D; it has lines in the Aircraft.cfg for Turboprop, Turbine AND Jet Engine parameters, while the Nemeth MD500E-G uses Turboprop Engine parameters!

 

Like I said... all over the map. I'll tell you; sitting there for an hour and a half hand flying a Helo with no Trim, AP or stick centering is an exercise in attentiveness, eyes glued to the VSI.

[jgf]

1 hour ago, ViperPilot2 said:

Everyone needs a couple days to decompress and take it easy.

 

If I take it any easier people will deem me catatonic ...and that's when I was working.  Retirement has enhanced this.

[jgf]

1 minute ago, ViperPilot2 said:

an exercise in attentiveness, eyes glued to the VSI.

 

a deathgrip on the stick, sweat running down my brow, pulse racing .....and I've flown two miles

 

I had hoped to get comfortable enough flying these wretched things to do my US capitols tour in one.  Not going to happen.  About thirty minutes and I'm ready to go do something simple and relaxing ...like tax returns.

 

It's probably easier in RL, you have full peripheral vision so better situational awareness, and there's tactile feedback of what the helicopter is doing.  In a sim all you have to work with is limited visual input.

[Melo965]

14 hours ago, Bossspecops said:

Yours looks as if it was in close formation with PL965!

 

It really was.  That was the worst thunderstorm I have ever experienced in FS.  My Spitfire was literally being tossed about, climbing and dropping 3,000 feet or more in seconds.

 

14 hours ago, Bossspecops said:

And it's great you finally made it here too, I wasn't leaving until you did. Where will we go for dinner?

 

Lets go to the Victory Tap over on the South Loop.  Good Italian food, and I sure could use a drink after that flight! 

 

Tomorrow, or the next day - Next leg is to Oshkosh!

 

[Melo965]

3 hours ago, jgf said:

Throttle is the collective and stick the cyclic, rudder (pedals or twist grip) is the tail rotor.  I find it helps to lower the sensitivity of all axes when flying helicopters

 

Great, thanks.  After I make it home to Bremerton, will give helicopters a try in FSX.

[Bossspecops]

6 minutes ago, Melo965 said:

 

Lets go to the Victory Tap over on the South Loop.  Good Italian food, and I sure could use a drink after that flight! 

 

Tomorrow, or the next day - Next leg is to Oshkosh!

 

 

Looks a good place, so that sounds like a plan. 

 

I'll be off to Raleigh-Durham tomorrow with luck, another place I've been to a few times in the RW. 

[Melo965]

1 hour ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

in FSX the Bell 47 on floats is a dream to fly, and fantastic visibility while learning.

 

I will definitely give that a try. 

 

[ViperPilot2]

46 minutes ago, jgf said:

 

a deathgrip on the stick, sweat running down my brow, pulse racing .....and I've flown two miles

 

I had hoped to get comfortable enough flying these wretched things to do my US capitols tour in one.  Not going to happen.  About thirty minutes and I'm ready to go do something simple and relaxing ...like tax returns.

 

It's probably easier in RL, you have full peripheral vision so better situational awareness, and there's tactile feedback of what the helicopter is doing.  In a sim all you have to work with is limited visual input.

 

Adjust your Null Zone down as well. Also fly at .50 Zoom... the Control Inputs are much easier to contend with.

 

On another Subject... There's something to be said about Windowed Mode vs. Full Screen; THAT'S where my Framerates went! 11-15 fps in Full Screen, solid 24.9 fps in Windowed Mode. Yikes! It'll take some getting used to.

[PhrogPhlyer]

3 hours ago, Melo965 said:

I will definitely give that a try.

If you want NAS Whiting and Spencer NOLF here is the link:

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

An unusual evening.

Something I've not seen before.

Twelve C-124s all scheduled to arrive at Dover AFB at the same time.

Glad I'm not working ATC when they arrive.

[Bossspecops]

9 hours ago, ViperPilot2 said:

 

Whether it's a Chinook, B206 or EC-135 the Flight characteristics of helicopters in Nine are all over the map, especially in Hover and initiating forward Flight. All of the Helos I fly are used with Rob Barengredt's Hover gauge which allows for a clean hover and stable flight up to 45 kts, after which the Gauge shuts off and the FD's from the .air file take over.

 

 

Yes, Rob Barengredt did some wonderful software, lots of it to do with getting VTOL FS types to fly properly in the V mode. But he also did other things as well, like a demon package for getting on and off a carrier and surviving, always a good idea. 

[TomPenDragon]

I wanted to drop a quick note of thanks to everyone who's weighed in on helicopters so far, and especially to PhrogPhlyer and Rupert, who've actually flown them - in 'Nam, too (when you've got bullets coming through the floorboards, ya gotta have brass cojones, as well as mad flying skills to keep 'em from getting shot off).

 

We all have different ways to process learning.  For me, the way to learn helicopters is to start by forgetting everything I know about flying and start from zero.  What thousands of pages and hundreds of hours over the years had failed to do (my problem, not the writers' and experts') and you guys finally succeeded, was to get me to realize that I was making my biggest mistake not in pulling the collective up too quickly or anything like that, but much earlier in my flight - at the vehicle selection screen.  All these years, I've been trying to force helicopters into this massive mental model that I've built with every flight I've planned and taken, called, "Flying."  Outside of getting you into the air and taking you someplace, to me they are completely different. 

 

Thus, approaching helicoptering as, "hopping in the plane and going somewhere," has to go out the window.  My old practice of pulling up on the collective, pushing the cyclic forward, and hoping to get into some sort of controllable flight before I hit something is not only bad flying practice; it's counterproductive in the sense that it all gets chucked into the "Flying" mental model, and all I learn is that helicopters are bad aircraft because they don't fly like Cessnas and Cherokees.

 

So, new mental model.  Blank slate.  "Helicoptering."  They shouldn't even call them, "Helicopters;" they should call them, "Humblecopters," because each time I get in one, it's a humbling experience.

 

The most important thing, then, is to find a humblecopter that I can work with.  Here too, we each have a favorite (or a least-hated).  Mine is the Nemeth Brothers' EC120B.  Yesterday, I flew a B-58 from Meigs to Le Mans, with the window rolled down and my arm hanging out of it holding a root beer (after crossing the pond at Mach 2.05, I've got a bit of a wind burn).  Then, I took my Colibri to a little flat spot in the Eifel Mountains where the Nürburgring Flugplatz should be, the way I usually flew it (mostly on autopilot.  I was able to land it safely (I usually can), albeit not exactly on the spot that I wanted to hit (I never can).

 

This morning, I just decided to practice.  Day One.  I don't have a throttle to control thrust or a yoke to control elevator and ailerons.  I have two sticks that serve to shape the helical lift vortex that's being generated a few feet above my head.  I pull the one that controls the amplitude of the vortex.  The turbine is running at a constant speed, fuhgeddaboudit.  The number that moves with the collective is the torque.  At about 28% torque, the strength of the vortex equals the weight of the humblecopter.  Dust starts appearing and I need to neutralize the torque to keep from yawing.  30% and the cabin windows start to sink.

 

Neutralize torque, leave the cyclic alone.  Right now, I want a perfectly round, perfectly vertical lift vortex.  I keep the roof of the cabin at eye level.  Holy Squitts, I'M HOVERING!!!  There's a 15-knot wind, too, and I'm staying in place.

 

Okay, so if the collective controls the vortex' amplitude, what does the cyclic do?  Well, all I have is this vortex over my head; I don't have anything else to move me ahead.  I push the cyclic forward slightly.  All of a sudden, my lift vortex isn't perfectly round, perfectly vertical.  It's got a lump in the back.  I start to move.  I'm not getting any thrust, I remind myself.  I'm shaping lift, so that there's more of it toward the tail.  So, the cyclic controls the vortex shape.

 

The collective controls amplitude.  The cyclic controls wave (vortex) shape.  Helicopters aren't anything like aircraft.  They're like old, analog synthesizers.  The collective is the keyboard, each position along its travel producing a note via a voltage.  The cyclic is the VCO/VCF.  The voltage from the keyboard is converted into a tone by the oscillator (VCO - Voltage-Controlled Oscillator, VCF - Voltage-Controlled Filter) and further shaped by the filter.

 

I do a few liftoffs and touchdowns, try to move around a bit, then a quick hop to Frankfurt for fuel.  For the first time at EDFZ, I set down next to the pump for the first time (note to self: if you want to land on a spot, aim in front of it).  Back at the 'Ring, take it down an octave.  Put a lump in the front of the vortex to slow down and maintain altitude, then sink...  Shape, shape, shape, shape, circular... drop it down a major fifth, and I'm back next to my cabin, only a couple of feet away from the oily spot of dirt that I chose as a touchdown spot.

 

It wasn't perfect.  The quickest way to get rich in my simworld still is to own the barfbag concession on my helicopters.  But for once, a safe landing wasn't an accident.

 

That's something I can build on.  Thanks so much, guys!

 

(As soon as I took the headphones off, I started hearing reports of an earthquake in New Jersey.  Are you okay, Dick?)

 

 

[Melo965]

16 hours ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

If you want NAS Whiting and Spencer NOLF here is the link:

 

Thanks a lot.  Looks like a good place to do some training.

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

1 hour ago, TomPenDragon said:

I started hearing reports of an earthquake in New Jersey.  Are you okay, Dick?

4.8 magnitude, strongest in NJ in 250 years.

I'm 40 miles from the epicenter and there was loud rumbling and mild shaking for almost a minute.

No damage here, or reported so far.

It gave me flashbacks to my 9 years living in Orange Co, CA.

All good, thanks for asking!

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

1 hour ago, TomPenDragon said:

I'M HOVERING!!!  There's a 15-knot wind, too, and I'm staying in place.

Congrats!

I remember my first real helo flight, TH-57A (JetRanger) sitting in a hover for the first time was like entering a new world.

Especially after having been flying a T-28C for the past few months!

[ViperPilot2]

3 hours ago, TomPenDragon said:

 My old practice of pulling up on the collective, pushing the cyclic forward, and hoping to get into some sort of controllable flight before I hit something is not only bad flying practice...

 

Wow...

[jgf]

The easiest helicopter I've found is the old Hovercontrol 412 Personal Edition By Jordan Moore, don't know if it's available anywhere today, I got it from the dearly departed Hovercontrol site (a wonderful place, they even offered online helicopter training).  It's stable enough I can actually take my hand off the stick briefly without worrying it will meander off on its own.

[Bossspecops]

58 minutes ago, jgf said:

The easiest helicopter I've found is the old Hovercontrol 412 Personal Edition By Jordan Moore, don't know if it's available anywhere today, I got it from the dearly departed Hovercontrol site (a wonderful place, they even offered online helicopter training).  It's stable enough I can actually take my hand off the stick briefly without worrying it will meander off on its own.

 

After a lengthy search around the Net I think I found an enhanced edition of it on Simviation, filename '1HC412_AB412.zip

 

Looks like a few more added on versions and repaints all based on the original model. 

[jgf]

1 hour ago, Bossspecops said:

I think I found an enhanced edition

 

Cool.  The original had several versions (military, offshore, ambulance, etc.) and a ton of liveries.  Files in mine are dated around 2005-2006.